I Am My Name: A Girl’s Journey to Finding Her Cree ­Family

Gr 1-4–A true story of love and its power to heal. During the Sixties Scoop, the author was forcibly removed from her family by the Canadian government for Indigenous “resettlement.” Only three years old, she was adopted by a Jewish family that included a loving grandmother, her bubie. The visuals by Cree illustrator Onedove capture the love between the author and her older Cree sister and the stark contrast to her new home and family. The pain of dislocation from her family and community is ­juxtaposed with her assimilation into the culture of her adoptive family and her bubie’s love. As Na’kuset grew up, she knew she needed to reconnect to her lost Cree family. With her bubie’s help, they find her birth family and Na’kuset (which means “the Sun” in Mi’kmaq) is given her spirit name by an elder, which captures her brightness and light. The illustrations imbue the author’s journey of self-identification and recovered family with a sense of wisdom and radiance. While the story is firmly rooted in the author’s experience of family trauma, the healing power of love and connection to one’s true self is evident throughout. ­Children and families touched by adoption will ­especially relate to the universal pain and the potential for healing that comes from the loving bonds of found family as well as birth family.